The Opposite Approach: ?How a new category got started in the food distribution industry.

It all started with Amerlander Cheese.

Israel Yunger and Jacob Dweck started Ambassador Foods back in 2012 with just one delicious product and a “make it happen” attitude.
It was cheese from a dairy co-op in Germany. Israel said, “We have to connect those German cows to American moms. Everything else is just an obstacle to overcome.”

The food business is in Israel’s blood… His father owned canneries. He imported olive oil from Italy. He was partners in a New York deli. He opened restaurants in Miami’s South Beach and launched a line of private label Italian foods for the nation’s largest distributor. Israel traveled the world searching for flavors of opportunity, and together, the two founders have overcome plenty to make Ambassador Foods what it is today.

Ambassador now markets, moves and sells more than 300 different imported food items in five different categories, and their reach extends all across the country.

In 2015 Israel’s son, Opher Yunger, joined the family business. Of course, he too grew up in the food service industry.
Opher’s done it all, from dishwashing and waiting tables to cooking, managing, buying, marketing and logistics. He also brings design thinking and creative problem-solving skills from his days in the advertising industry.

“I’m a systems thinker, and that’s what we need to take this business to the next level,” Opher said.

During the COVID 19 supply chain disaster the entire Ambassador team pulled together to adapt and expand their services. In the process, they fine-tuned a hybrid business model acting as a wholesaler, distributor, marketer and even importer in some cases.

“As my dad likes to say, if everything went right, they would not need us. Which means, you get better when you’re going through rough patches, like we did with COVID. It may be chaotic, but that’s how you learn and improve.”

The hybrid model has proven to be a smart move, as more and more customers and brands are moving away from the confusing old, multi-channel-partner model.

“My father, naturally, devised a whole new business model based on genuine, personal connections and exceptional problem-solving skills. He just loves doing things the opposite way.”

“We make life a lot easier for our clients, it’s as simple as that,” Opher said. “Why would you deal with four or five different channel partners, when you can hire one good Ambassador to do it all.”

The Channel Ambassador model combines the best traits of a brokerage, the connections of broadliner, the smarts of a consultancy and the closing skills of the best sales teams.  

“I always tell our team… if we solve problems for our customers, and our customer’s customers, then the business will flourish and take care of all of us.”

A good example is Ambassador’s connection to the Miami Grand Prix F1 race.

Every F1 race involves a major hospitality operation, with tons of catering, extravagant parties and hundreds of world-famous VIPs. It was Friday night before qualifying, and a shipment of bresaola beef had not arrived. The culinary lead called their distributor in an uproar, and they called Ambassador for help.

There was no bresaola to be found in Florida. They were desperate, but since we have such a long-standing relationship they were not afraid to reach out. Our team began calling friends and contacts up and down the East Coast for an alternative solution.

We found the meat and had it FedExed to the F1 people overnight.

Our network of relationships and the sense of community that we’ve built over the years helped us come through for our client’s customer. And all the big wigs attending the official events at the Miami Grand Prix got to enjoy amazing Uruguayan Beef Punta.

“That’s what ambassadors do,” Opher says. We’re connection makers, door openers and problem solvers. But at the end of the day, it always comes down to superior flavors and the quality of our foods. Above all else, it’s gotta taste good.”

What started as a scrappy effort to move a single brand of cheese across an ocean has turned into something far more valuable than a food distribution company. It’s an entirely new way of thinking about the category.

Most companies in this space define themselves by the numbers… cases, pallets, trucks, margins. Ambassador is defined by the problems we solve and the connections we make.  

That shift sounds subtle, but it changes everything. It turns a vendor into a partner. A transaction into a relationship. And a supply chain into a business lifeline.

If you’d like to learn more about Channel Ambassadors, contact us here.